Parten v. State Indus. Court, 45149
| Decision Date | 11 April 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 45149,45149 |
| Citation | 496 P.2d 114 |
| Parties | Lloyd E. PARTEN, Petitioner, v. The STATE INDUSTRIAL COURT OF the STATE OF OKLAHOMA et al., Respondents. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Paul Stumbaugh, Mangum, for petitioner.
Rinehart, Cooper & Stewart, Oklahoma City, for respondents, M. & P. International, Inc., Employers Mutual Casualty Co.
This is an original proceeding for review of an order of the State Industrial Court sitting en banc on an appeal from an order of one of its judges sitting as trial judge. The proceeding in that court involved the claim of the petitioner herein, Lloyd E. Parten, against M. & P. International, Inc., as employer (hereinafter referred to as the respondent), and Employers Mutual Casualty Company of Des Moines, as its insurance carrier.
The claim was based upon personal injuries allegedly sustained by the claimant on Sunday, September 13, 1970. In their answer, the respondent and insurance carrier specifically denied, among other things, that the claimant was an employee of the respondent at the time of the alleged injury, and that the claimant sustained an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment with the respondent, and that the claimant sustained any injury that would come within the purview of the workmen's compensation act.
The trial judge found, among other things, that the claimant sustained an accidental injury to his back arising out of and in the course of hazardous employment with the respondent, and entered an order awarding him compensation for disability based thereon.
The State Industrial Court, sitting en banc on appeal therefrom, vacated that order and denied the claim 'by reason of the fact that Claimant did not sustain an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of his hazardous employment with the above named respondent.' That is the order involved in this proceeding.
The claimant did sustain an accidental personal injury to his back, in the respondent's shop around noon on a Sunday while loading his tools and shop manuals into his pick-up truck, some 23 to 24 hours after he had received his last weekly pay-check and was told that his employment was terminated as of that time, at closing time for the week-end at noon on the preceding day. If, as pleaded by the respondent and its insurance carrier, the claimant was not an employee of the respondent at the time he sustained the injury, it (the injury) could not have been one arising out of and in the course of his employment with the respondent, and the Industrial Court, sitting en banc, was correct.
The first prerequisite to the jurisdiction and authority of the State Industrial Court to award compensation under the workmen's compensation law is a showing that the claimant was, at the time of his injury, an 'employee' of the respondent, within the meaning of that term as used in that law--that is, that the relation of 'employer' and 'employee,' within the meaning of those terms as used in that law, actually existed at the time of the injury. See: Reeves v. Muskogee Cotton Oil Company et al. (1940), 187 Okl. 539, 104 P.2d 443; El Reno Broom Company et al. v. Roberts et al. (1929), 138 Okl. 235, 281 P. 273.
When the relationship is denied in such a proceeding, a jurisdictional question is presented and this court on review will determine whether, as a matter of law, the facts are sufficient to establish the existence of such relation. See: Reeves v. Muskogee Cotton Oil Company et al., supra; Harrill v. State Industrial Commission et al. (1953), 208 Okl. 666, 258 P.2d 624.
The relationship is purely contractual. There must be an express contract between the parties or such acts as will show unequivocally that the parties recognize each other as employer and employee. And, for the purposes of the workmen's compensation law, the contract must be to labor for agreed 'wages,' as that term is defined in that law. See: Hamilton et al....
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Jones v. Jay Truck Driver Training Center, Inc.
...Cup Co. v. Pate, 528 P.2d 300 (Okla.1974); INA of Texas v. Bryant, 686 S.W.2d 614 (Tex.1985); But cf. Parten v. State Industrial Court of State of Oklahoma, 496 P.2d 114, (Okla.1972) (Injured employee was not under compensation coverage when he removed his tools from the workplace because t......
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Mitchell v. Hizer
...opposite conclusions have been reached in factual situations closely analogous to the case at bench. In Parten v. State Industrial Court (Okl. 1972) 496 P.2d 114, an employee was simultaneously paid wages to date and discharged. He told his employer that he needed help to load his tools whi......
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Worcester's Death, Matter of
...but will determine as a matter of law whether facts are sufficient to establish existence of the relationship. Parten v. State Industrial Court, Okl., 496 P.2d 114 (1972); Herron Lumber Company v. Horn, Okl., 446 P.2d 53 (1968). Within this context, this court also may weigh evidence and pa......
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Beall v. Altus Public School Dist.
...workmen's compensation law, the contract must be to labor for agreed 'wages,' as that term is defined in that law." Parten v. State Industrial Court, 496 P.2d 114 (Okl.1972). In the case at bar, the Workers' Compensation Court found that claimant was not working for "wages" as defined in 85......